Rock out to these Vegas tunes

Hard beats, hard liquor and hard times: Here's the latest roundup of Vegas music releases:

QUINT & THE COWPUNK CALAMITY, "Quint & The Cowpunk Calamity" (myspace.com/cowpunkcalamity): If there were such a thing as a contact hangover, this pancreas savaging collection of 100-proof honky-tonk would have tongues swelling and temples throbbing.

Frontman Quint Olsen attempts to drink his blues away, but he'd have better luck trying to out race his shadow on an album that's so dyed-in-the-wool country, there's even a song here called "My Baby Left Me."

Aching lap steel and robust upright bass lines form the bedrock for Olsen's laments, which become a bit more invigorated on Rancid and G.G. Allin covers.

If country is indeed the music of pain, as Olsen and Co. contend in the disc's liner notes, here's a dozen fresh wounds in no need of mending.

KAMIKAZE PROPHETS, "Meet Your Maker" (myspace.com/kamikazeprophets): A worthy soundtrack to your next bar brawl, "Meet Your Maker" isn't about reinventing the wheel so much as burning lots of rubber and leaving a few skid marks on punk rock's battered torso.

Singer/guitarist Andy Crews sounds as if he gargles with whiskey and broken glass, his raspy howl giving voice to a life lived on the wrong side of the tracks. The Prophets' fast, hooky jams are almost as hard as Crews' luck, colored black by titles such as "Faceful of Razorblades," which pretty much says it all: This is blood and guts rock 'n' roll meant to loosen hips and teeth in equal measure.

ESCAPE THE FATE, "Issues Remix EP" (escapethefate.net): Remix albums are kind of like nipples on a man: They really don't serve much of a purpose. It's the musical equivalent of playing Barbie, a bunch of people dressing up the same thing in different outfits.

That being said, this four-song EP from Vegas hedonist rockers Escape The Fate is almost as fun as one of their stripper-enhanced videos.

L.A. Riots turns the titular song into a full on dance floor firebomb with a hands-in-the-air synth line and a seismic bottom end. Brit rockers Does It Offend You, Yeah? take the exact opposite tact, at least initially, slowing the song down into a brooding, slow burn with stoned-sounding vocals before kicking up the BPMs and rendering it into a shout-along rager.

Wolves at the Gate and Jakwob also add some propulsive beats to the tune, potentially minting a new genre: arena rock-tronica.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.